E.P.A. Moves to Change Environment Priorities

The Environmental Protection Agency took to Congress today its campaign to reassess national environmental priorities that the agency's leader says are sometimes misplaced.

The campaign won the support of Senators from both parties on its broad objectives but also evoked misgivings and skepticism about whether scientists know enough to rank environmental risks accurately.

William K. Reilly, the Administrator of the agency, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that what scientists regarded as the most serious environmental threats were often different from those that excited the public and stimulated Congressional action.

For example, he said, a study by a board of scientists who advise the agency has determined that global warming caused by gases from human activity is among the highest environmental risks, while hazardous waste is among the lowest. But he said people rated them the other way around in public opinion surveys, placing hazardous waste as a top threat and relegating global warming to a spot far down the list of concerns. Push for National Debate

Mr. Reilly has said he is seeking to prompt a national debate on the subject. It is part of an effort by his agency to take a central role in shaping a coherent, long-term environmental policy based on scientific assessments of risk. In the past, he has acknowledged, the agency has mostly reacted to public and Congressional environmental concerns on a case-by-case basis. Those concerns can differ from scientists' long-term view because they are often a reaction to a crisis, for example, when there is a big oil spill or release of toxic chemicals.

Until recently, Mr. Reilly told the Senate committee, "questions of relative seriousness have not been asked."

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the committee, said that he was "enormously heartened" by the direction the agency was taking and that its attempt to get the nation to re-examine priorities could "define the next stage in this whole area of public policy."

But Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, Democrat of Ohio, said the establishment of environmental priorities "certainly sounds good" but it "might be easier said than done." The scientists who advised the E.P.A. acknowledged that much information was lacking about some environmental risks, Mr. Metzenbaum said, adding, "Frankly, I don't find that very reassuring."

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At the center of the debate is a report issued last fall by the E.P.A. Science Advisory Board, a group of independent scientists who advise the agency. In addition to destruction of habitats and global warming, the group's list of high-risk ecological threats includes depletion of the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful solar radiation, the extinction of species and loss of biological diversity.

Medium-risk threats on the list included herbicides and pesticides, acid rain, pollution of surface water and airborne toxic substances. Relatively low-risk problems included oil spills, the escape of radioactive materials into the environment and groundwater pollution, which can be caused by hazardous wastes and leaking underground storage tanks.

The group also identified these high-ranking environmental risks to human health: indoor and outdoor air pollution, the exposure of workers to chemicals and pollution of drinking water. Citing inadequate data, the group declined to go any further in ranking environmental health risks.

The panel also urged that the E.P.A. concentrate more than it has on the protection of natural ecosystems. "The E.P.A. and the nation should attach as much importance to reducing ecological risk as to reducing human health risks," Dr. Raymond C. Loehr of the University of Texas, co-chairman of the science advisory panel, told the Senate committee. He said there was a vital long-term interaction between a healthy environment, sustainable economies and human health. The Big Picture

He said the panel judged and ranked environmental risks on the basis of how severe their effects could be, how many people and how broad a geographical area they could affect and how long it might take to reverse their ill effects.

Mr. Reilly said in a statement to the committee that he did not "want to minimize the importance of other problems that were not ranked high, like oil spills," adding, "These problems can cause real damage." But he emphasized, "They are typically in a different league compared to some of our other problems, such as stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change, which have the potential to affect life everywhere, and for many years to come."

In describing what he considers his agency's more active role in shaping policy rather than just responding to episodic environmental crises and concerns, he cited its role in working toward treaties on global warming and reforestation and its work on the phasing out of chemicals that destroy the ozone layer, on the planting of trees, the protection of the African elephant and debt-for-nature swaps.

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A version of this article appears in print on January 26, 1991, on Page 1001011 of the National edition with the headline: E.P.A. Moves to Change Environment Priorities. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe